I'm just trying to get an honest overview of the history. Fascist is not necessarily a dirty word, just a style of government.
> often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
the first part of that is the defining part of fascism - the state ideology. There's also common co-features like authoritarianism, a cult of personality and anti-democratic tendencies but neither are especially universal (for instance with Pinochet and Franco).
It is pretty commonly used to describe just authoritarianism in general though.
I dislike the usage of "fascism" to mean "authoritarianism I disapprove of" (I used to use the word that way). It's an unhelpful word, because people use it in so many ways. Now, I only use it to refer to the Italian state under Mussolini. For other uses, I try to say what I mean.
This is the definition I'm drawing from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenetic_ultranationalis...